I haven’t understood this since version 5, and I’ve finally decided to ask because, even in Cubase 12, it remains an unclear, almost “voodoo-like” behavior.
What determines the track height applied to newly created tracks? I want all tracks to default to a height of 2 lines, with only a few of them set to 1 line. However, whenever I resize a few tracks, all newly created tracks default to a height of 1 line.
Why does this happen?
The height of newly created tracks doesn’t make any sense. Even if I make tracks taller, like 4 lines, new tracks still default to a height of 2 lines. There’s no consistency at all. I think the height should at least be copied from the last selected track, or there should be a “default new track height” option, like a radio button, somewhere in the settings here:
Indeed, this behaviour seems erratic.
Somehow I was under the misconception that it depends on the average height. But that is not always true even if I take level and track type into consideration. Never noticed that…
However, you will find consistency if you change the track height of all tracks either
-by pulling at the lower border of a track header in the project window while you press control (cmd) or by
-clicking on minus/plus in the lower right corner of the project window
Afterwards, newly added tracks will have the exact same number of lines as the other tracks which have just been adjusted.
I am confident that someone else knows how the track height is calculated under regular working conditions. And curious, too.
Anyone knows?
Set the track height as @Reco29 has stated. This becomes the default.
So set height once and leave it alone.
The exception, for me, is the Tempo track, which seems to like a 2-line height. I change to my favoured 1-line, next time I open the project, it’s back to 2-lines. Only happens with the tempo track, for a long time.
If I do that all of my 1-line height tracks become 2-line. This is the scenario that I don’t want to happen.
yeah I dig it but then all of my 1-liners become tall 
It’s probably:
Number of exisiting rows / Number of existing tracks = height of newly created track
Rounded down. Per track type.
What I’ve described in my 2 previous posts works consistently for me. Tempo track excepted.
Track height is a zoom setting and as such the zoom height presets operate upon all visible tracks. To direct row height to only certain tracks you’d need to use the visibility commands to hide the tracks you don’t want to include in the zooming action.
If you need newly added audio tracks (for example) to be set to a user-defined number of rows you can make a macro as follows:
Process Project Logical Editor / Hide All
Add Track / Audio
Zoom / Zoom Tracks N rows
Channel & Track Visibility / Agents: Undo Visibility Change
But I agree it might be better to have a row height setting in the Add track dialogue.
P.S. The above macro structure may not work properly with the generic Add Track dialogue.
To me, it looks like yet another abandoned feature that remains broken from release to release. I don’t understand why, out of nowhere, my newly created tracks appear as just one line when I’ve never adjusted the track height or zoom. This is just an embarrassment.
@reverse_entropy It’s not broken. It’s a design choice. The row height is essentially a zoom setting which affects all tracks. In a project where there are different track heights, newly added track row height is set according to the following equation: Number of exisiting rows / Number of existing tracks = height of newly created track(s) [rounded down, per track type]… or something similar. If you set the zoom for track height to 1 row then all newly added tracks will have a height of 1 row. The height for the tracks doesn’t come out of nowhere, it is calculated in terms of the height of existing tracks and the zoom settings you have chosen. AFAIK the default track height for an empty project is 2 rows.
How you would ideally like the track height to be set may be relevant to your own way of working but unfortunately may not suit others. One way to overcome the issue might be to have a track height option in the Add track dialogue. This may be worth a feature request but TBH IMHO it’s doubtful it would be implemented.
In the meantime, if you need newly added audio tracks (for example) to be set to a user-defined number of rows you can make a macro as follows:
Process Project Logical Editor / Hide All
Add Track / Audio
Zoom / Zoom Tracks N rows
Channel & Track Visibility / Agents: Undo Visibility Change
I think you’re making up some nonsense.
“The row height is essentially a zoom setting which affects all tracks.”
My zoom setting is 2 lines.
“Number of existing rows / Number of existing tracks = height of newly created track(s)… or something similar.”
What exactly is this ‘Number of existing rows’?
In my example, I have five 2-line rows and two 1-line rows. So, 12 / 7 = 1.7 which is rounded to 2. Yet, it creates another track with a 1-line height.
This isn’t a design choice — it’s inconvenient spaghetti code.
It should work like this:
This is simple and clear. Currently, if I change the setting from 2 lines to 1 line, all newly created tracks are 1 line. If I make at least one track to be 1-line - ALL new tracks becomes 1-line. And I don’t understand you explanation and mythic design choices behind this. It’s clearly a bug or unfinished functionality.
It seems I simply cannot have a single one-liner in the project without Cubase annoying me with newly created one-liners. It completely ignores how many two-liners were already in the project. This is called inconsistency, not a design choice.
Just look at this mess - how is anyone supposed to predict the height of the next track? It’s completely random. Just ran-dom.
No. There’s no ‘should’ about this. That is the way you expect it to work but unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. And the last used zoom setting does not apply if you have manually changed the heights of one or more tracks.
I can understand the confusion.
You have misunderstood the equation. You stated: ‘12 / 7 = 1.7 which is rounded to 2’. It’s not rounded up. It’s always rounded down as in ‘12 / 7 = 1.7 which is rounded to 1’
So it would appear that it might be you who is making up nonsense. No offense intended.
I agree. It can easily seem like a mess.
But track height is NOT established on a track by track basis as you add each track. Track height is essentially a global value which is applied to all tracks when you use one of the track height presets. If you select a track height of 1 row in the Track Height presets, all tracks currently in the project window will be set to the same 1 row height and any track you add thereafter will also be set to the same 1 row height. But the last used track height preset is NOT used as the setting for all subsequent tracks added to the project. As soon as you manually change the height of one or more tracks a new track height is calculated based upon the total number of rows used per track type. This is the way it works. If you don’t like this then you could perhaps make a feature request. I do agree that the behaviour can be misleading.
In the meantime, you could use a Macro to overcome the problem, as outlined above.
You know it seems like you are right, it gets the average of height of all tracks, That’s nuts TBH 
Don’t resize tracks kids. Nuff said.
I’m in the opposite camp I guess. I constantly show/hide and zoom tracks depending on where my focus needs to be so I don’t really care what the initial track height is so much. But looking at @reverse_entropy’s screen recordings, it does look a bit unpredictable even if there is some logic to it.
